Help me with willpower

[Anonymous]

I need to lose 20 lbs. I've been trying since last summer. I'll get on a good kick of eating and working out but then get easily derailed by kids, life, illness, bad day, etc. I was headed in the right direction but then took a medicine this fall that made me gain almost 10 lbs so I'm more discouraged than ever. I've started Whole 30 a few times but I find it too restrictive. I've also done IF (thanks to this board) which I can do on a 16:8 for a few days but then I fall off the wagon. I feel so cranky and deprived when I'm hungry. There's so much going on in my life food does feel like one positive thing I can have. I'm not eating tubs of ice cream or cheescakes or anything like that but I do eat more than I should to lose. I started tracking calories again and as usual did well for a few days and then tonight totally went overboard at dinner. For those who are successful with willpower, how do you do it? The old "nothing tastes as good as thin feels" isn't cutting it. I see a lot of Phen Pro people on here and I'm not there yet. Is there anything short of that I can take to help jump start me? I feel so defeated and helpless.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you’re trying to make big, dramatic changes. Maybe changing something smaller will help.

Or maybe start with more exercise. It’s all about diet, not so much exercise, for weight loss, but I know when I go for a run I don’t want to eat ice cream and blow up my hard work.

Or, and this is total projection here, so you have adhd? I do, and I do stupid things like you’re talking about. It’s not so much lack of willpower as it is impulse control (maybe the same thing). My heart is in the right place, but in the moment, I just don’t even think about the long term goal sometimes until I get the habit down if I’m off my meds. The worst example is when I needed to quit caffeine. I’d go for weeks and not really even be craving caffeine, but I always get a coke at the theater when I see a movie. I’d just get it out of habit, then after the movie I’d realize I just had a ton of caffeine and I’d have the withdrawal headaches again. So I’d have to be careful to prep myself before I’d change up my routine so I didn’t have slip ups like that when I tried to change habits. Pep talks, reminder notes, reward systems, plans and strategies for how to deal with things... things like that helped.

As far as real life causing break downs in the new system, the thing that helps me most is meal planning and cooking ahead as much as possible. If I have my lunch portioned out and I can grab and go, I won’t get to lunch and wonder what I’m gonna eat and hope I order the healthy option. If I have my snack bin full of appropriately portioned fun foods, I won’t go looking for ice cream or have to worry about having too much (eyeballing it and accidentally on purpose taking too much).

[Anonymous]

starting with "I need to lose 20 lbs" is a bad way to start.

too false, vacant, simplistic

find your lemon dreams.

[Anonymous]

Do you have more willpower with exercise or with diet?

My diet willpower is crap, but I have amazing willpower when it comes to exercise. So I take advantage of that and work out every day, and manage my weight that way.

If I do try to lose weight, I have to be careful not to completely deprive myself or I'll get crabby and rebellious and eat whatever I want. You might have better luck if you start with just a few areas of your diet. Like my dad - he loves Coke, so I got him to cut back to just one a day and he could have diet if he wanted more. For me, I'm big on portion control and a good balance of protein, carbs and veggies - I keep veggies in the fridge to add to everything (steamed broccoli, grape tomatoes, etc.) and only let myself have one carb-y thing at a meal - rice, pasta OR bread, not some combination.

[Anonymous]

OP, I have zero willpower. None. Borderline binge eating disorder. I hate counting calories. I’m a SAHM with two toddlers and dieting sucks the life from me.

Whole30 worked for me. I didn’t lose weight, but I have NO cravings. Like, none. They were sampling chocolate at Whole Foods a few days ago and I walked right by. I didn’t think about it at the time, but after I realized how huge it was.

Try Whole30 again.

[Anonymous]

Willpower is hard - you have to exercise it every time you make a decision, so there are lots of opportunities for your willpower to fail. Try to instead make rules, not choices. One might be "I don't eat after dinner." You just don't. You don't have to decide whether to have a cookie or an apple (you are going to eat the cookie if you even consider a cookie an option.) Its a rule, like putting on your seat belt. You don't chose whether you want to wear a seatbelt each and every time. You just do it.

I forget which book I read talked about making rules rather than trying to rely on willpower, and it seems silly but it works for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Willpower is hard - you have to exercise it every time you make a decision, so there are lots of opportunities for your willpower to fail. Try to instead make rules, not choices. One might be "I don't eat after dinner." You just don't. You don't have to decide whether to have a cookie or an apple (you are going to eat the cookie if you even consider a cookie an option.) Its a rule, like putting on your seat belt. You don't chose whether you want to wear a seatbelt each and every time. You just do it.

I forget which book I read talked about making rules rather than trying to rely on willpower, and it seems silly but it works for me.

I agree with this. My personality is such that I do better with hard rules. No eating between meals. If I do it one day, I will keep doing it for five days and blow up all my hard work. I find tracking, weighing myself every day, and setting some rules like no eating between meals is what helps me the most.

[Anonymous]

Personally flexible dieting works for me - having a 1200 calorie limit/day, with two-three free meals/week. I set a minimum protein requirement that I attempt to meet daily so as not to lose muscle, but otherwise can eat whatever I want with the rest of those calories. Knowing I can eat a couple free meals on the weekends keeps me motivated.

[Anonymous]

Do you know how to cook?

[Anonymous]

So I chew gum wen I want a snack. It definitely helps with the cravings. Not the healthiest but it’s better than eating a whole candy bar or ice cream or something.